Zero Days Read online

  Day 62: Today, we climbed our last big pass, Muir Pass. Surprisingly, we had more snow going up than down. At the top we saw Muir Hut, a cold stone hut on top of the pass. Our way was an easy 10 miles. We met Paul and Alice, who gave us food! Whoopee! Yahoo! We had a wonderful campsite by the river.

  Another pleasant surprise occurred farther north, on a very hot day around the end of July when we were hurrying to reach Highway 49, where relatives had promised to pick us up for a zero day in Carson City, Nevada. We were tramping along through undistinguished scenery when we happened upon a big cache of Gatorade. A man from Sparks, Nevada, had left it there, with a note explaining how much a drink of Gatorade had meant to him on his backpacking trips, and how he wanted to provide others with the same enjoyment. We took him at his word, relaxing on aspen logs and guzzling down the wonderful drink. Mary’s account read:

  Day 84: Today we found a Gatorade cache! It was very nice!

  Backpackers love to joke about food, but when it comes to water, they’re deadly serious. The pursuit of adequate H2O is a necessary compulsion. Much more so than on other long trails, a PCT thru-hike involves a constant search for water. Except in the southern Sierra, where it’s the overabundance of snow and water that’s the problem, the PCT is amazingly dry. Everyone expects water shortages in the southern desert; that’s why the most well-attended meeting at the annual PCT kickoff is the presentation of the water report. That’s why God invented trail angels. But Oregon? There is something uniquely unfair about a state in which we were so wet, so much of the time, that we forgot what dry boots felt like—and yet we had to worry about water just as much as we did in the Mojave Desert. The reason is Oregon’s volcanic past. Much of the state is coated with several feet of highly porous, volcanic rock. Besides being a pain to walk on, this kind of rock allows the rain to percolate right down to the distant water table, while leaving hardly any on the surface.

  It’s no secret that water is especially scarce at the very south end of the trail, especially if you can read a little Spanish. The PCT is a popular route for undocumented immigrants trying to get across the Mexican border to return to their jobs washing dishes in Las Vegas and mowing lawns in San Jose, and the U.S. Border Patrol is no more anxious than the immigrants are to find people dead of thirst in the desert. The warning signs are bright yellow and very insistent that the terrain ahead is hot, dry, and dangerous: “Cuidado! No exponga su vida a los elementos. No vale la pena!” These words of caution (which I translated roughly for Mary as: “Careful! Don’t expose your life to the elements! It’s not worth it!”) are surrounded by whimsical symbols of a glowing sun, precipitous mountain slopes, a saguaro cactus, and, oddly, a man swimming. Ironically, this first section of the trail is practically lined with discarded water bottles (as well as worn-out socks and other trash) left behind by immigrants eager to lighten their loads as they head north, and apparently oblivious to the possibility that they might want to refill those bottles if they can find a seasonal spring or perhaps a cattle trough before they reach their destination.

  We carried enough water our first day for a dry camp (one without a source of water) and got more the next day at the Lake Morena campground. In subsequent days, we often carried extra water. Sometimes we knew we had to make a dry camp; other times, we knew caches or natural sources of water were coming up but we didn’t want to rely on them entirely. Whether to depend on water caches provided by trail angels is a constant source of concern for thru-hikers, and it’s a big topic of discussion during the presentation of the water report at the kickoff. Several people in southern California, and a few in Oregon, have taken it upon themselves to provide jugs of water at strategic locations for thru-hikers to use along the driest sections of trail. These vary from three or four bottles left under a shrub to maybe 100 gallon jugs, their handles carefully tied together against the wind, placed where the trail crosses dirt roads. Supplying these caches is a big job, and trail veterans warn that backpackers should take only what they need to get to the next natural source of water, as it may be weeks before the cache is replenished. People at the tail end of a thru-hiker herd may find the supply exhausted. We were ahead of the pack during our seven weeks in the desert, but not so far ahead that trail angels hadn’t begun providing water yet. We were fortunate—all the caches mentioned in the water report had plenty of water. And regardless of how long it had been sitting in the sun, getting warm and absorbing a plastic taste from the jugs, that water tasted good!

  Besides being lucky, we were also very careful. We never relied completely on a cache. As a result, our packs were often much heavier than those of other thru-hikers because we were intent on keeping Mary, at least, well hydrated. We were so careful, it wasn’t until we’d been on the trail for 104 days that we finally succumbed to an unplanned dry camp. But we did get thirsty, just the same. There is a thirst brought on by hours of strenuous exercise in hot weather that is so deep, only several gallons of water can satisfy it. Sometimes it took a couple days of heavy-duty water consumption to get past the body’s constant yearning.

  How much did we crave water? Let me tell you about the “small stream.”

  It was Day 26 on the PCT, and it was hot. Really hot. There was no shade, and there hadn’t been any for a couple days as we pushed through the Deep Creek area of Section C in southern California. And it was ugly. This part of the state gets burned over frequently, and the brushfires’ destruction lasts for years. Earlier, we’d been walking through areas that had been charred a few years ago, but on this day, we were in Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area, which burned in October 2003, the year much of southern California went up in flames. Satellite photos at the time showed so much smoke wafting toward the Pacific Ocean that it was hard to determine what was burning and what was not. Of state parks affected along the PCT, Silverwood was hit especially hard. The 1,000 acres that burned in Silverwood seems small compared to the 25,000 acres blackened at nearby Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, which in turn is dwarfed by that year’s total for wildfire destruction in California: nearly a million acres. But Silverwood brought the destruction home to us because it was so intense—and because that’s where we saw the fire damage up close and personal.

  The fringes of the park were scorched and blackened. Signs were missing or even melted, hunks of plastic frozen, mid-drip, like the clocks in Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. We stopped briefly to eat and drink, while some men working on a road stared at us. Park workers stopped to question us. The park was closed to everyone but thru-hikers, so once we explained what we were doing, they drove away. An important trail intersection existed in a picnic area, but those signs were also destroyed. Gary searched the area and discovered the trail on a hillside. According to the Pacific Crest Trail Data Book, there was a small, unnamed stream about 4 miles from the picnic area and 10 miles before our next stop at Cajon Pass on Interstate 15. We followed the meandering trail through the burned-over hills, until we reached a point where the trail was too badly eroded to follow. With considerable difficulty, we descended into the ravine, went around the wash-out, and climbed back up. A couple hundred yards farther, we found another wash-out, only worse. Once past that, I checked the book. Where’s that small stream? It was past noon and we should have found it by that point. We kept going, contouring in and out through the dry ravines. No water anywhere. By 1:30 p.m., I had given up. Mary would get the rest of our water, I decided; Gary and I would do without. All of a sudden, there it was! It was small, all right, but it was a stream, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. We clambered down to a good filtering spot on a shelf of rock, with room for all three of us. I lined up the water bottles. Gary assembled the filter. Soon, we were laughing and guzzling water. I splashed the wet stuff on my face with sighs of pleasure. Gary and Mary poured water over themselves with more laughing and shrieking. Blackened or not, it was a lovely grotto and we spent a delightful hour and a half there. By the time we reluctantly packed up to leave, I had swallowed tw
o liters, a record for me.

  We continued planning our trail days around water sources, as our appreciation of the people who stocked the caches grew and grew. Once in a while, we found naturally occurring water where we didn’t expect it: Tyler Horse Canyon, near Mojave, seemed unreliable judging from the water report, so we didn’t include it in our plans. But we discovered running water and very nice campsites there on our way to bone-dry Gamble Canyon, which completely lacked decent sites for a three-person tent. Sometimes we expected water but didn’t get it: Robin Bird Spring, north of Mojave, was a major disappointment, especially considering it got a good review in the water report. There was no water coming from the pipe; just a tiny trickle from a culvert. Luckily, we had enough water to carry us through to Landers trail camp, where there was plenty of water from a spring on the edge of a campground apparently used mostly by off-road vehicle owners.

  These happy surprises and unsatisfied expectations were based primarily on the PCT water report for that year. The water report, issued every spring, describes water sources from the Mexican border north for hundreds of miles. The printed report is handed out at the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off in late April, and it’s also available from some trail angels. (Some information is also available online.) For each of the hundred-plus water sources, the report lists the name, map number in the Pacific Crest Trail: Southern California guidebook, its location and number of miles north of the border, the latest information available, the date it was reported, and the person who made the report. For example, in the 2006 report, the San Felipe Hills Third Gate Cache was described as 91 miles north of the border, and it could be found on map A12. “Charlie” reported seeing 102 gallons there on April 21, and he made his report April 23. An editor’s note underneath the listing pointed out that it takes a lot of work to haul all that water to the Third Gate’s remote location, and urged backpackers to take only as much as they needed to get to Barrel Spring, 11 miles away. In the unlikely event that there’s no water at Third Gate, alternatives are offered, with an additional note about the importance of respecting private property the hiker may need to cross. At about the same time, “Scout” and “Sprout” reported that Lost Valley Spring, 120 miles north of the border and two tenths of a mile off the trail, provided plentiful water that was good if filtered. A note from “Monty” added that better water could be found 25 yards beyond the trough. Far to the north, at mile 186, Deer Spring on the North Fork of the San Jacinto River was described by “AsABat” as “flowing strong with snowmelt” and surrounded by “much snow.”

  The reality of any water source is hard to convey with just these basic bits of information. And one individual’s experience will be different from another’s over the course of the hiking season, as streams and springs dwindle in the summer heat and as trail angels guess—accurately or not—how often each cache needs to be replenished. When we reached Third Gate, there were plenty of water jugs there, but not 102 gallons. Lost Valley Spring, a very small spring near a hilltop campsite, made us wonder what would happen if many more people began hiking the PCT. Gary doubted it would be able to provide water for more than a handful of hikers per night. Deer Spring was surrounded by snow in 2004, just as it was in 2006. We had hiked out of Idyllwild after spending the night at the Tahquitz Inn, and we needed to filter water before looking for a campsite several miles farther on, where no reliable sources were listed. Everything was pretty much covered in snow, the route was hard to follow, and it was cold. Gary found a precarious place where he could dip the water purifier’s intake tube into the ice-cold water. Mary held the water bottles for him while perching on an icy boulder, getting the seat of her pants wet in the process. During this remarkable performance, I more or less stood there and voiced my admiration, occasionally unwrapping a candy bar and stuffing it into somebody’s mouth.

  From Kennedy Meadows at the south end of the Sierra to Sonora Pass in central California, our water worries focused entirely on a super-abundance of it in rivers and creeks. For that distance, we were more worried about drowning than about dehydration. From Sonora Pass up to Lake Tahoe and on to Highway 49 near Sierra City, California, the water situation was just about right: enough streams and lakes to provide reliable water, but few difficult stream crossings. After that, we had to plan more carefully. The heat was broiling, typically approaching and occasionally exceeding 100°F. The Data Book began to show longer stretches between water sources, and some of those sources were less than ideal. One particularly unpleasant day in Oregon, we took the alternate Oldenberg Trail, as recommended in the guidebook, because water sources were more frequent on that route. Gary was feeling very badly, aching all over, especially his knees, and he was in a vile temper. The mistakes I made finding the alternate route didn’t help any, and when I triumphantly delivered us to Nip and Tuck lakes, we couldn’t get water there—there was no place where Gary could sit and filter. The lakes’ borders were nothing but mud. Usually, Gary is a genius at finding ways to filter water despite an apparent complete lack of suitable spots, but at both Nip and Tuck, even he couldn’t find a way. So more time was wasted. We finally got enough water at Oldenberg Lake to get us to Fish Creek Horse Camp, where good, cold water gushed out of the taps.

  The day we made a dry camp without adequate water had occurred a few weeks earlier, in Castella, in northern California. I should have learned my lesson at Belden, in central California’s Feather River country, where I foolishly expected we could hike 20 miles on a very hot day, after a late start, and with a total altitude gain of 5,680 feet. We didn’t make it, but we got away with it that time because there was a spring after only 13 miles, and we found a marginal campsite nearby. Hiking out of Castella, we got an even later start after picking up our resupply box at the post office, then eating burritos and drinking Gatorade, and re-organizing everything on the patio next to Ammirati’s Market. Like an idiot, I thought we could start in the afternoon and hike 20 miles in 95°F heat, with a 3,800-foot altitude gain, and with nine days’ worth of food on our backs. Worse, when we did reach a water source late in the day, we didn’t stop to filter water. We paused to admire the carnivorous pitcher plants and to talk to a thru-hiker nicknamed “Dirty,” who had wisely halted there for the day. But then we kept on, thinking we were going to reach Helen Lake by dark. We didn’t get to the lake. We didn’t even find a decent campsite. Instead, we set up the tent on a wide spot in the trail, somewhere east of Trinity Divide, ate a few Pop-Tarts, drank a little water, and went to bed. Our luck changed the next morning when we woke up to one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen. A little trail magic must have influenced the way we set up our tent—we could see the dawn right out the tent door, complete with a spectacular view of Mt. Shasta and Castle Crags. We did eventually reach Helen Lake, where Gary was treated to a view of a woman sunbathing nude on a floating air mattress while he filtered the lake water.

  One of our worst disappointments in the water department led to some of our best trail magic. On another hot day, we hiked 24 miles to Scott Mountain Campground in northern California’s Trinity Alps. The guidebook indicated there would be water, but there wasn’t. Not a drop. We found a campsite and then faced the possibility of having to walk or hitchhike several miles to get water. Fortunately, Don and his son, Adrian, of Berkeley, were car-camping there. When we explained our predicament, Don gave us three gallons of water—more than enough for us, plus the four other hikers who arrived after dark. Don and Adrian dropped by our site for some conversation and gave us a couple peaches, our first fresh fruit in a very long time. They were followed by Peggy of Gardnerville, Nevada, who had hiked portions of the Appalachian Trail, and was eager for a little trail chatter. She also gave us a mango and homemade cookies. And in the morning, Patricia from Arcata brought us a heap of fresh organic raspberries from her garden. She even hauled away a couple sacks of trash for us, which was a great help. (Besides lacking water, the campground also lacked trash cans and outhouses.) A visi
t that began without even water turned into a cornucopia of fresh food and pleasant conversations.

  Along with a constant preoccupation with finding water, smart backpackers are fairly compulsive about safe water. Whether to treat drinking water taken from natural sources is a topic of long and heated debates in the backpacking community. I grew up drinking straight from the creeks of eastern Nevada’s Schell Creek Range, muttering my family’s mantra about water purifying itself every 30 feet or so, and I never got sick. As late as the 1970s, I drank directly from streams in the Sierra, scooping up my drinking water in a little collapsible metal cup. But today, Gary and I purify all water unless it comes from a developed spring or well. Other backpackers use iodine or bottles with built-in filters. The most technologically advanced have a small, battery-operated device that uses salt and an electric current to purify water. Many use nothing at all. And to be honest, giardia—the bane of backpackers, with its diarrhea, gas, stomach cramps, and nausea symptoms—seems to strike more or less randomly. Over the past couple decades, the giardia parasite has spread throughout much of the Sierra, according to some sources. And according to other sources, giardia isn’t that common, and people can safely drink from backcountry streams, as long as they’re certain there’s no contamination from upstream—say, from an animal taking a dump near the water. Problem is, of course, backpackers don’t have the time to check out the entire watershed that flows into every source of water. So we purified our water, and escaped giardia—although we certainly had plenty of other problems.